Obama’s legacy? Scandal

The Obama scandals started piling up on top of each other in the last few days. The civil servants who testified on Benghazi were heartbreaking. Then the IRS admitted a punitive agenda against tax exemptions for groups with “tea party” in the name or groups that “educate about the Constitution.”

Then Eric Holder’s Justice Department was revealed to be wiretapping the Associated Press in April and May of 2012 to nail a leaker. President Obama is not a “victim” of a “second-term curse.” This is the corrupt first term beginning to smell, it is his administration, and even the media cannot deny the odor of malfeasance.

Most liberal pundits are no longer lecturing the conservatives about how they should dump the Benghazi probe, as is their clarion call after every Democratic scandal. Too much damaging information is coming out, not to mention the stonewalling, not to mention Obama’s continuous and blatant lying, such as his thuggish insistence he called this a terrorist act from the get-go, which he did not — period.

The growing collection of the Obama scandals paints a larger picture of a president who appears comfortable with an IRS that harasses his enemies, a State Department that lies to the world and a Justice Department that’s wiretapping AP reporters on their home phones. That’s not exactly the image of Hope and Change that the press — including the Obama pals at AP — sold us in 2008.

In 2006, reporters suggested Bush might be impeachment fodder for “domestic spying” — when the National Security Agency was listening to phone calls between Americans and Muslim radicals abroad. If the media can’t summon a stronger sense of outrage when the “domestic spying” is on their journalistic colleagues, then you’ll know (again) they’re completely in the tank.

In 2011 and 2012, a disturbing number of Obama’s media coddlers tried to suggest he was miraculously free of any Obama scandals. Forget Fast and Furious. Who ever heard of Solyndra? One of Obama’s top Democratic fundraisers ran MF Global into the ground. Who knew? Tingly Chris Matthews said Obama was “perfect” and “clean as a whistle” and has “never done anything wrong.”

Some journalists still care more for Obama’s image than they do about the truth. Time assistant managing editor Rana Foroohar greeted the IRS scandal by announcing on MSNBC, “What’s so sad about it is the president has been very rightfully proud of the lack of scandal in his administration so far.”

That could be a Jay Leno punch line.

On NPR’s “Morning Edition,” anchorman Steve Inskeep sounded like he’d been asleep like Rip Van Winkle for two years. He asserted to Cokie Roberts, “this administration has been described — I don’t even know how many times — as remarkably scandal-free. But when you get into the second term of an administration, there’s often some dirty laundry that comes out.”

This is the same Steve Inskeep who gave Obama campaign manager David Axelrod a nine-minute interview on Oct. 11, one month after Benghazi — and never raised the consulate murders at all. Thanks to NPR, the “dirty laundry” stayed under the bed until Obama could be re-elected.

Apparently he buried it so well, he even he forgot the Benghazi scandal existed. Inskeep wrapped up the interview by comparing Obama to Lincoln in his reluctance to whack his opponent. “Abraham Lincoln, as historians have noted, had a habit of getting upset with someone, writing them a letter that might be a very strong letter, and then sticking it in a desk — never sending it,” Inskeep stated. “I’m interested if metaphorically, the president has been sticking a lot of letters in the desk?”

Now we know it was more along the lines of “Hello? IRS?”

Insert vomiting sound effects here. This is how NPR flagrantly demonstrates its mockery of the Public Broadcasting Act’s long-ignored language about “objectivity and balance in all programming of a controversial nature.” To them, Obama should be chiseled into Mount Rushmore even as he engages in breath-taking corruption to destroy his enemies.

If the media had acted like professionals in 2012, more of this new information would be old news by now. Voters could have made a decision between Obama and Romney with a fuller picture of how corrupt this administration truly is. By refusing to reveal that corruption, they brought that stain of corruption on themselves.

Some reporters in this moment are sounding like professionals. But too many reporters are spending too much time pining about how scandals may harm Obama’s “legacy.” Journalists shouldn’t be demonstrating great care for Obama’s historical reputation, like they’re the White House weed-whackers.

Obama’s legacy is becoming apparent. He laughably claimed to be above politics, above partisanship and dirty tricks — when the facts are proving he’s really the dirtiest pool player in today’s politics. It’s Chicago-style politics, day and night.